


Appetites

by mindforgdmanacles



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Attempt at third person reader insert?, Brainwashing, F/F, Medical Torture, Power Dynamics, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2020-07-29 11:41:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20081608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindforgdmanacles/pseuds/mindforgdmanacles
Summary: She’d decided early on what lengths she would go to to ensure her own survival. She had anticipated this. Enabled it, even. Still, she couldn’t shake this bitter revulsion at herself, at being reduced to the plaything of a lunatic. At how violently, wretchedly, she’d come to crave the touch of a fellow human being.Even hers. Especially hers.





	1. Take Your Pick

**Author's Note:**

> Take two!

She was not always called Coinín. What began as a taunt became an endearment, and then a designation. But she used to be called something else, before. Though she had no way of knowing it then, the day of her capture was the last day she would ever hear anyone speak her name.

* * *

From where they had her kneeling, a girl who was not yet Coinín imagined she could distinguish figures moving in the darkness swimming behind her blindfold. She was trying to form some notion as to the layout of the room; she marked the low chatter of the guards behind her and the measured footsteps of someone pacing, a task which would have proved a great deal easier, she was sure, if the poor sod to her left weren't nearly hyperventilating. 

“Get ahold of yourself,” she hissed, and elbowed him sharply in the ribs with some careful maneuvering of her bound wrists.

“No talking!” someone barked, and she wheezed as a booted foot kicked her soundly in the stomach, tumbling backwards without the use of her arms to support herself. At the commotion, her neighbor began huffing with renewed enthusiasm. So much for that.

As she was struggling to right herself, a door hissed open, and her head whipped toward the source of the sound. She counted several sets of footsteps entering the chamber before the door slid shut. 

“Captain.” It was a new voice. Female?

“Ah, Doctor,” he greeted the newcomer. After a beat of silence, he cleared his throat awkwardly and said, “Take your pick.”

Someone—the doctor, she expected—moved to the leftmost end of the line and slowly walked their ranks, stopping occasionally. She felt her heart rate pick up as their footfalls drew nearer.

_Keep your head down, keep your head down—_

Then the footsteps paused directly in front of her, and she started as a cold hand grasped her jaw and turned her head one way and then the other. She buried her nails into the meat of her palms as she resisted the urge to do something very stupid. Like bite. Apparently satisfied, they relinquished their grip on her chin and let it drop back to her chest. Even as she heard them move on, she could still feel the ghost of those fingers boring into her skin, and she longed to rub them away.

“Yes?” It was the captain.

“This one, this one…her, and that one there.” This “doctor” spoke with the rounded vowels and elongated r’s of an accent she couldn’t quite place…Irish? American, even?

She heard movement behind them again, and someone grabbed her under the arm and hoisted her to her feet. Why were they splitting them up? Had they already negotiated her release? Stumbling and blind, she was hauled to the front of the room, where they kicked her knees in again, and she grimaced as her shins crashed against the floor.

Over the shuffle, she heard the captain ask, “And the rest?” 

If there was an answer, she did not hear it. 

“At my command,” he called to the rest of the room, and her eyes widened behind her blindfold as she realized what he meant to do. She scrunched them closed, pointlessly. There was more shouting and protest among the prisoners, and she wished she could cover her ears.

“Commence firing,” he ordered, and the small room exploded into an eruption of gunfire, followed by the nausea-inducing sound of her former comrades’ limp bodies hitting the concrete.

She had made a miscalculation.

And something scraped over her scalp and carded through her hair, and she felt a fresh wave of horror and utter revulsion at the realization that it was someone’s hand, their sharp fingernails.

Then something else cracked against the base of her skull, and the darkness shattered into a brilliant, shrieking red, and she felt nothing at all.


	2. Something for the Pain

Awareness returned to her slowly. She spent much of her time drifting in that delirious place between wakefulness and sleep, disoriented save for a vague but urgent sense of _wrongness._ The first time she came back to herself completely, she was laying flat on her back, tracing patterns in the cracking paint on the ceiling with her eyes, and she remembered the failed job, the blindfold, the gunshots. She was on a bed—more of a cot, really—covered in a thin sheet. _Like a cadaver,_ she thought, and realized with some distress that her wrists were cuffed to either side of the bed frame. There was a cold feeling in the crook of her right elbow, and, horrified, she saw that she was tethered to an IV drip. She wished fiercely that her hands were freed so she could—what? Yank it out of her arm, like the hero of an action movie? Her stomach roiled at the thought. Besides, it seemed that she was only attached to a relatively innocuous-looking bag of clear fluid. The bedsprings shrieked as she shifted to better examine her surroundings, and the sound hurt more than it should have, reverberating against the inside of her skull like an echo in a well.

The chamber itself was somewhat reminiscent of an exam room, she thought, with a line of cabinets framing a countertop and a stainless steel sink on one side. There was even an industrial steel desk, but it did not look as though anyone was currently making use of it. There were two doors on the wall she was facing, though one was smaller and flimsier and she expected it only led to a closet. Behind the desk was a third door with a small, circular window, like a porthole.

She realized several things.

1\. A search party had undoubtedly been dispatched for her, and that she wasn’t already free was extremely worrisome.

2\. Whoever was holding her had access to a vast amount of money, resources, and troops.

3\. They hadn’t been warned of the presence of an organization more sophisticated than a few bothersome local gangs, which meant

4\. they had been betrayed.

Which should not have been all that surprising, really. The people with whom she associated where far from trustworthy. They were probably in chaos now. But they would still send for her. Right? For the first time since her capture, she felt a cold brush of panic, just for an instant, like a stranger drifting past her on a crowded street.

She was weak; despite her insistent sense of unease, she had to fight the urge to doze off again, but she did not want to squander the current advantage she had over her captors: time to think over her strategy. She doubted whoever was holding her would be much impressed by a show of thrashing and screaming. This wasn’t the first time she had been caught, after all, although she was not usually quite so isolated—

Movement on the other side of the window drew her eye, and she steeled herself as someone knocked primly at the door. She slipped on a mask of quiet self-assuredness as easily as someone else might pull on a glove. The door opened, and two white-clad figures entered.

At first glance, she took her for a man, what with her towering height and close-cropped hair. The black tie and crisp purple button up she was wearing under her lab coat exaggerated the effect, so Coinín assumed it was intentional. But her face was unmistakably feminine, with the gaunt, high-set features characteristic of aristocracy, and a shock of red hair, a bit too striking to be considered pretty. She regarded her with eyes framed by short, pale lashes, one an icy blue, the other a startling shade of crimson. Though, thinking on it, Coinín supposed she had several friends who had undergone much more drastic modifications in the pursuit of fashion…

“My name is Dr. O’Deorain,” her guest said in a lilting accent, and she recognized her from before. Irish, then. She noticed her right hand was thrust awkwardly into the pocket of her lab coat. The fingers of her other hand were tipped with long, arching talons painted a gaudy shade of purple, and she felt like that detail should be important, somehow, though she could not recall why. They were impractical, anyway, if she was really a doctor, which wasn’t even to mention—

“You’ll remain under my care for the foreseeable future,” the doctor continued, turning her back to her, and she heard the distinctive snapping of latex gloves. She craned her neck, trying to catch a glimpse of the doctor’s elusive right hand, but then she was already turning back to her, each hand safely concealed within an opaque blue glove. Damn.

“I’d shake your hand, but, well.” O’Deorain inclined her chin toward her restraints and gave her a rueful smile, and she now wanted very badly to hit her, but she kept her face impassive. 

“Usually, at this point in a conversation, you’d offer me your name.” O’Deorain looked at her expectantly, but she just blinked cooly back at her, and she felt a vicious joy at the flash of frustration that crossed her face before she arranged it back into a neutral expression. 

“Not feeling very talkative, are we? No matter. I’m sure we’ll think of something to call you…” Yes, we would. 

Her companion—some aide, perhaps?—looked far more interested in the tablet he was holding, and she had not been paying him much attention. Now he flicked the lights on, and Coinín could not stifle her groan of pain.

The doctor’s eyes flashed with interest. “Experiencing some sensitivity to light? Headache? Dizziness?” She was across the room before Coinín could react, forcing one of her eyelids open with her thumb and shining a light in her eye. She struggled weakly at the sensation of the light burning a hole directly into her brain.

“Those brutes.” Dr. O’Deorain made a disapproving sound with her tongue, and released her, clicking off the pen light and returning it to her pocket. “She’s concussed,” she called to the assistant, and removed something else from the inside of her coat. A syringe. Her heart was pounding in her ears, and each beat sent a fresh throb of pain directly to her head.

She uncapped it and flicked it twice with a gloved finger. “It would be preferable to allow you to recover before continuing with treatment, but I’m afraid I have deadlines to meet. I’m sure you understand.” Another apologetic smile, and Coinín could not help the grimace that spread across her face then, more a baring of teeth than anything.

“Something for the pain.” She plunged the contents of the syringe into the tubing about her arm, and the last thing she saw before she lost herself to unconsciousness was her bloodless lips stretching into a smile.


	3. Waste Not, Want Not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone else finding themselves besieged by a constant but nebulous feeling of guilt and fear? I don't want any of you laboring under any delusions that this work isn't thoroughly drenched in shame. It's like my dear friend William Blake says: Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion, and Depraved Fanfiction with pages of Christian Grade School.
> 
> At any rate! I've never written for people on the internet before, and I'm unsure of what the average attention span is on a website like this. I hope you're not growing impatient. We're getting there, I promise.

Coinín jerked awake suddenly, disturbed by dreams of spiders nesting in her hair. She ground the back of her head against her pillow; she could still feel their legs prickling against her scalp. How long had it been? A few hours? A day? A rescue operation was undoubtably underway, by now.

Some time after she awoke, she became aware of a faint tapping noise coming from the other side of the wall, and, curious, she echoed the rhythm back with her foot. With little else to occupy her time, she had been at this for a while now, although she was beginning to wonder if the wall just had an echo. The only other sound was the buzz of the fluorescents, the occasional creak of the bedsprings, and her own breathing. She’d once read about a room so quiet you could hear your own organs functioning, and it was said anyone shut in for more than an hour would start to lose their mind—

She started at a knock at the door and barely had enough time to compose herself before O’Deorain swept into the room, clipboard in hand, an assistant bearing a tray trailing behind her. Possibly the same one as the day before. She did not remember.

“Good morning.” A slow, unpleasant smile that made her itch under her skin. O’Deorain looked much the same as the day before, but the shirt was black and the tie was a vivid cyan. “How are we feeling today?”

Coinín had less patience for games today. “What is this place?”

O’Deorain began leafing through a file, her long, spindly fingers moving like spiders’ legs. “An answer for an answer, hm?”

She bit back a scathing retort. “I am better today, thank you.” 

The doctor set the papers on the desk and leaned against it casually, bracing herself on two long arms, and Coinín was struck again by how tall she was. “So polite! I’m glad to hear it. More talkative too, I see. Yes, the nanites will accelerate the healing process. I’d have another look at your eyes, though, if you don’t mind.”

“What if I bite you?” she asked pleasantly.

O’Deorain was unperturbed. She wheeled a desk chair to her bedside. “Oh, come now, be civil. I’d have to gag you, and I’d hate to deprive myself of your _delightful_ conversation.” She closed the distance between them and took a seat, clicking on the penlight, and Coinín noted that she already had her gloves on today. 

She could have done it, too. She was leaning close for her enough to smell her cologne, something clean and masculine. The light hurt less now, and she watched O’Deorain watch her, noticed the way the creases around her eyes deepened in concentration, the way she pressed her thin lips together, and it would be such a sweet thing, to see her unbalanced, shrieking, clutching at a bloody stump where she had a finger a moment ago, the taste of her blood in her mouth…

Maybe another time.

O’Deorain cleared her throat. “We’re an independently funded research facility—if you’d follow the pen with just your eyes now, thank you. I’m studying human gene alteration. Jump-starting evolution, as it were. My findings will be used to advance the human race.”

She was mad, then. “You’re going to alter my genes?”

O’Deorain withdrew, apparently satisfied. She brought one foot up to rest on her opposite knee, and Coinín caught a glimpse of a black dress sock. “That’s the idea, yes.” She reached for the clipboard again.

“Are you going to kill me?” she asked, carefully, keeping her voice casual. As though she were enquiring about her plans for the weekend.

O’Deorain did not look up from her notes. Her hair was gelled back, and Coinín could see the tiny rows where it had been split by the teeth of a comb, like a plowed field. “It’s not my objective, but it’s always a risk. I do try not to be wasteful. Mind you, human subjects are in very short supply. ‘Waste not, want not,’ as they say.” She set the papers aside and examined her with distant curiosity. “Does that frighten you?”

_Like hell._ “Who do you work for?”

O’Deorain clapped her hands together, the sound dry and muffled by her gloves. “I think that’s quite enough questions for today. You’ve already gotten more than your fair share of answers, nosy thing. If you’ll set the tray down here and remove her restraints.”

Coinín’s heart leapt. “Are you sure about that, Doc? I’m still a dangerous criminal.” 

O’Deorain moved behind her and she stiffened as she smoothed her hair over one shoulder, raising gooseflesh along her arms. “Be that as it may, it’s not in my interests to watch your muscles atrophy.”

She forced herself to breathe. Out. In. “I’m touched.”

O’Deorain hummed. “It’s not that I don’t trust you to behave yourself,” she said, draping something cold and heavy across her collarbones, “but you should know that with a press of a button this collar will administer a painful and potentially debilitating electric shock.” She fastened it behind her neck with a click. “You’re free to move about the room. You’ll find a bathroom behind that door, but—”

“Yeah? What’s behind door number two, a new car?”

The doctor followed her gaze, frowning. “It’s locked.” She turned back to her, smiling apologetically. “I need to run one more test. Then, if you behave yourself, I’ll—”

“Give me a lollipop?” Coinín was goading her now. This charade was growing tiresome; she wanted to see how far she could push O’Deorain before she snapped. 

But she only laughed lightly, though, somehow, it was not a happy sound. “We’ll see.”

The aide was fumbling with the cuffs around her ankles. She flexed a newly-freed foot and giggled delightedly when he flinched away.

Then O’Deorain snapped a length of curious blue elastic around her upper arm. It was uncomfortably tight. Her wrists were still bound; she turned her arm over and examined it, frowning.

“Just a prick.” She glanced up and saw O’Deorain was unwrapping a needle, and she felt her mouth go dry. Her unease must have been written all over her face, because the witch had the nerve to laugh. “Some ‘dangerous criminal’ you are, near fainting at the sight of a needle.” 

She gritted her teeth but said nothing. Once she was out, she’d stick her full of needles like a porcupine, see how she liked it.

O’Deorain pressed something cold to the inside of her elbow and she jumped. “Afraid of an alcohol swab, too?”

“Shut up,” she grunted.

O’Deorain gripped her forearm tightly, and she watched the needle slide into her skin without meeting any resistance. It did not even hurt, really, but she found herself fighting to keep still. She hadn’t exactly spent much time around doctors; she supposed she always thought when blood was drawn, it had to be sucked out, with a syringe, or something, but her blood spurted eagerly into the vial, and little black spots began to swim in her periphery as she watched it splash against the glass.

“You can close your eyes, if you like—”

“Shut up.”

She tutted, twisting off the vial without gentleness and replacing it with a fresh one, and Coinín grimaced as the needle jostled under her skin. “Suit yourself.”

Finally, she removed the needle and pressed a wad of cotton to the puncture, securing it with a bit of tape, and Coinín felt herself go limp. The doctor passed the samples off to her assistant. “Label these and put them in the centrifuge.” 

Coinín glared up at her suspiciously when she heard her unwrapping something else. “What’s that?” She’d meant to bark it, but more panic had slipped into her voice than she would have liked.

O’Deorain was already pressing whatever it was into her arm. “A treat.”

It hit her almost immediately. “Oh,” she breathed, and her eyes fluttered shut as she was enveloped by a pleasant haziness. “That’s very good.” She watched O’Deorain finish unfastening her wrists through half-lidded eyes.

O’Deorain rose and gathered her things. “I’ll send someone to look in on you later. Behave, yes?” She nodded to the tray. “And eat that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enabling always appreciated.


	4. Gullible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear! I think it's time we check the "Graphic Depictions of Violence" box!

Several hours later, she emerged rather disoriented from a nap she hadn’t known she was taking. Finding herself unrestrained, she sat up, stretched, cracked her neck. Whatever they’d given her had been very pleasant indeed. She’d been peacefully sleepy, but without the unpleasant sensation of being pulled under. She could see why so many people liked the stuff. But now it was wearing off and she was feeling restless again. She slid out of bed and stood unsteadily, the blood rushing from her head.

She took quick inventory of herself. A small mess of tubes was still nestled inside her elbow, held in place by a few strips of tape. She prodded it, curious, but remembered her blood spewing into the syringe and decided it best not to tamper with it. Her feet were bare. The taste in her mouth was vile. She was in a gown, the kind that they wore in movies, soft but threadbare. She began to wonder who else might have worn it but quickly abandoned that line of thinking. The best use of her time would be to familiarize herself with the room.

She decided to investigate the cabinets surrounding the sink. The first cupboard was locked. She tried them all, anyway. No luck. The water worked. Came out hot, even. She stuck her head under the faucet and drank until she could feel water sloshing around in her belly, then gargled, and spat. As far as cages went, this one ranked higher than most. 

There was an unappetizing bowl of cold porridge sitting abandoned on the desk. She scrunched up her nose. She would save that for if she became truly desperate.

For the sake of being thorough, she tried the door the doctor used, and, finding it locked, peered through the window. Another white wall. She must have been on a hallway. The wire mesh inset in the glass divided her view into squares, like an architectural drawing. 

The flimsier door opened to a cramped little bathroom, as promised. Toilet seemed to be in working order, which would spare her some indignity. No soap. There was a canister with a pump attached to the shower wall, but it was empty.

She moved to the final door and jangled the handle. Locked, as expected. She knelt, pressed her cheek to the cool linoleum, and peered under the door, grinning triumphantly to herself when she saw a pair of bare, dark feet.

“Psspsspssspssst!” she pssted.

The feet spun around in surprise. “Hello?”

“Here!”

She watched him shuffle onto his hands and knees. A sliver of a honey-colored face and a single wide, green eye appeared in the slit under the door.

Coinín smiled at him to show she was friendly. “So it’s you who’s been rapping at my chamber door!”

The stranger blinked. She thought he looked her age, or a little older. “I—”

“I was doing ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’ Could you tell?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. Could you tell I was doing ‘Ode to Joy?’”

She frowned. “What can you tell about the people who run this place?”

“Right to business, yeah?” He had a pleasant accent and a kind voice. He reminded her of a schoolteacher. “I don’t know where they get their funding, if that’s what you mean, but Moira O’Deorain calls the shots around here. You have probably heard of her. She is something of a black sheep in the scientific community. All kinds of fuss a few years back about a paper she wrote on personalized gene modification…” 

She made a dismissive gesture. “Right. I don’t think we run in the same circles. Has she already…modified your genes?”

He nodded. “They are doing something to my memory, I think. And my ears. And she blinded me in one eye.”

Her own eyes widened. “Really? This one?”

“No.” A pause. “Why would I be looking at you with my blind eye?”

She laughed, a bit too loudly. “Right, yeah. Silly question.” Despite her best efforts, she could tell he was still wary of her. But she was used to this. Most people found her too intense.

“What’s your name, anyway?” he asked.

She ignored this. “Can I see your blind eye?”

He sighed. “That’s okay; you don’t have to tell me. I would probably forget it anyways. Mine’s Hasam. Might as well tell you before I forget it, too.” He chuckled nervously. (Later, she would wish that she had given him her name after all, for safekeeping.) 

She jammed her fingers under the door, and together, fingertip to fingertip, they imitated shaking hands. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Hasam.”

He laughed a nice, warm laugh, and Coinín felt a pang of pity which she quickly stifled. “Pleased to make yours. She enhanced my hearing, too. Did I say that already? That’s how I knew you were in the other room. I could hear you breathing.”

“Creepy!”

He ignored this. “I heard you talking with her earlier.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh? Hear anything interesting?”

“You shouldn’t try her like that,” he said seriously. “She’s under a lot of stress.” 

She snorted derisively. “Poor thing. Has she got high blood pressure or something?”

He didn’t laugh. “That’s not what I meant.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not afraid of her.”

“Well,” he said darkly, “maybe you ought to be.”

She gave an awkward, one-shouldered shrug. “It’s just sport, really. I should be out of here in a day or two. I’ve got people looking for me. Important people.” She said this with more conviction than she felt, and felt a soft bloom of hope at her own words.

“Oh, yeah? Think you can take me with you?”

She considered it. “Sure, why not. And then we can burn this place to the ground with everyone in it, and smear the ashes all over our faces. It’ll be great.”

The eye widened. “What about the other prisoners? Can’t you get them out first?”

She was already beginning to have second thoughts. “Well, then we wouldn’t really have the element of surprise on our side, would we? Besides, these people are already marked for death, yeah? And if we tamper with the balance of life and death, we’d be the ones playing God. And then, what would really make us any different from someone like her, you know?”

His brow furrowed. “I…don’t actually think that’s how any of that works.”

Just then, she heard footsteps approaching her room, and she scrambled away from the door. She tried to arrange herself in a natural position as the door opened.

But it was just the nurse. Assistant, she rebuked herself. It wouldn’t do to think of these people, her captors, as proper medical professionals, but it was difficult not to consider them in such terms when they so looked the part. He wore muted green scrubs with a name tag clipped to the pocket, and square glasses with thick lenses that made his eyes look huge and bulging, giving him the appearance of a frightened insect. He even had a stethoscope slung around his neck, which gave Coinín a delicious idea. An experiment of sorts, for the mad doctor’s sake. Surely, she’d waited long enough. Yes, it had been long enough…

He shut the door and glanced down at her, clearly perplexed. “What are you doing on the floor?” His Adam’s apple bobbed when he spoke, and Coinín had to make a concerted effort not to look at his throat.

“Well,” she said, smiling up at him with just a little too much teeth, “it is a really nice floor.” Then she flicked her eyes upwards. “What are those letters on the ceiling?” 

She lunged at him as soon as he followed her gaze, grabbed hold of the stethoscope, crossed the ends, and pulled tight, knotting it around her hand for extra leverage. 

“G-U-L-L—” she ground out.

Funny. His hands flew to the cord constricting his windpipe, instead of the remote which must surely have been somewhere on his person.

“—I-B-L-E.” He stopped clawing at his throat and began fumbling for something in his pockets. Can’t have that. She gave the cord a backwards yank as he tried to buck her off—like a bull rider, she thought giddily—and swept his legs forwards, and he crumpled to the floor. She slammed his face against the steel bed frame once, twice, and heard something crack. He went still.

She kept the stethoscope taut for a few more seconds, just for good luck, before releasing it. His head made a wet sound as it hit the floor. She exhaled like she’d just taken a hit. Lovely. Better than the drugs. But there was no time to admire her handiwork. She was just about to search his pockets when the collar around her neck went white hot, and she fell to her knees, her muscles alight with an exquisite pain oddly like needles. The door opened again, and black shapes swarmed into the room.

It happened very quickly. Someone was yanking her up by the hair, but she clung to the felled nurse’s clothes, biting and kicking and hissing like a lioness defending her prey. They pried her off and tossed her on the bed like a doll, giving her an extra shock for good measure. She stopped struggling. 

Still spasming violently, she could see him lying face down and motionless, the blood pooling around his head forming a ghoulish halo. One of the thugs dragged him from the room, leaving a thin trail of blood in his wake. The rest filed out after, leaving the room distressingly quiet and still, as though nothing had happened at all. Except for all the blood, of course. On the floor. On the sheets. In her mouth. And, all alone, still twitching from the shocks, Coinín began to laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you all have the “gullible” joke in grade school?


	5. Abyss

After the incident, they left her alone for a long time. 

Coinín had never considered herself an overly social creature. In fact, her self-reliance was one of things she prided herself in. She told herself it was the lack of stimulation that got to her. Time here ran sticky and slow, like sap oozing from a gash on a tree, and she could feel every second of it chipping away at her sanity. 

Sanity. She had always felt herself standing at the mouth of that yawning abyss, the one that stares back. All it would take is a push, and she would go tumbling in and be lost.

So she had to become more creative in finding ways to occupy her time. She tried knocking for Hasam, but they must have moved him. Or worse. Remembering what the doctor had said about muscle atrophy, she adopted an emergency exercise regimen. Squats. Pushups. Sit-ups. Handstands against the wall. For hours, she paced like a caged animal in an infinity-shaped path, a loop in the bathroom and a loop in the main room. She turned the shower as hot as it would go and sat under the stream until her palms were shriveled like prunes. She slept as much as she was able. She took to humming and singing to herself to keep the deafening silence at bay, and then to reciting poetry, whispering it under her breath like a prayer.

The trays of food arrived at irregular intervals, often while she was sleeping. If she happened to be awake, whoever delivered it ignored her questions and was quick to give her a shock if she got too close. The time between trays gradually became longer, and her attempts at initiating conversation more desperate.

No one had bothered to sop up the mess she’d made. The bloody puddle blackened and congealed, and the blood coating the bed frame dried like a layer of rust. She picked flecks of it off with her fingernails, watched them flutter to the ground, like snowflakes, and was suddenly overcome with an urge to put one in her mouth. She pinched a flake between her fingertips and laid it delicately on her tongue, like a communion wafer, and waited. 

Nothing special happened. It just tasted like blood.

* * *

When the doctor did come, she came alone. She did not knock. On the bed, Coinín straightened up, wide-eyed and alert, but grateful for any company, even hers. But then she saw she was without gloves, and she realized why O’Deorain covered her right hand. 

It was monstrous, purple as a bruise, the skin stretched taut over her bones, and laced through with bulging, pulsing veins. It twitched like a dying insect. O’Deorain shut the door and leaned against it, crossing her arms. She was studying Coinín with a look of distant boredom, but the fingers of her mutant hand thrummed impatiently on her opposite arm. “I’d appreciate it if you would stop terrorizing my staff,” she said finally. “I’m shorthanded as it is.”

Coinín wet her lips, and when she spoke, her voice was hoarse from disuse. “Maybe I act out for attention.”

O’Deorain’s fingers stilled, and she cocked her head like a creature. “Are you trying to make me angry?” she asked with what sounded like genuine curiosity, and Coinín realized that whatever game they were playing, she was losing badly.

She said nothing, so the doctor continued.

“Perhaps I’ve been overly indulgent.” She peeled herself from the door and stalked towards her like a predator. “My…patrons…agree that you’re too unruly. They’re most disappointed in your recent behavior. They say you need to be punished.”

She realized then that she was in deep trouble. That something terrible was coming, and she needed to say something, right now. “Please—”

O’Deorain ignored her. “Do you think I take pleasure in causing you pain?”

She looked down at her hands, shaking her head. “I—I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Look at me.” O’Deorain slid her grotesque hand under her chin and tilted her head upwards. Two eyes, red and blue. An ocean and a drop of blood under a microscope. There was no anger in her face, but there was no pity, either. “I don’t.”

Her eyes were filling with tears, and she wasn’t sure anymore if they were real or affected. “I’m sorry—”

She dropped her face. “You’re not,” she said coolly, and Coinín knew she had failed. “But you will be.” She uncapped a syringe.

“What’s that?” Coinín asked, hating the desperation that had crept into her voice.

O’Deorain knelt, pushing whatever it was into her arm, and Coinín knew better than to resist. “Punishment.”

She could take her, she thought, if it weren’t for the damned collar. O’Deorain’s height gave her an undeniable advantage, and she could see evidence of a wiry musculature beneath her lab coat, but Coinín doubted the doctor had ever seen combat. Hell, she’d probably never even held a firearm.

She winced as O’Deorain removed the tubing. The skin underneath was red and wrinkled, and the adhesive left a sticky residue. Miraculously, she did not bleed out. 

O’Deorain rose. “I’ll leave you to…consider your actions.” 

Then she left, and Coinín was alone again.

* * *

It started like a fever. Hot flashes. Headache. Dizziness. Shortness of breath. Her gown clung uncomfortably to her clammy skin. A particularly strong wave of nausea sent her to her knees, retching, and she did not rise again. Her vision took on a reddish tint, like she was peering through a sniper’s scope, and she began to see dark shapes darting about in her periphery.

With great effort, she heaved herself to where she’d talked with Hasam, and collapsed again. “Hasam! Hasam!” she shrieked, pounding her fist on the door.

She pressed her feverish cheek to the cool tile, and again, his face appeared under the door. Only now, he was smiling a brilliant white smile, and his eye was red as a sunset. It stared straight ahead, unblinking. Then a black spider crawled out of the corner of his mouth, and Coinín began to scream.

She could not account for what transpired over the next few hours. She saw many impossible things. The aide she'd assaulted, groping blindly about the room, or clawing after her, his head cracked open like an egg. Blood streaming out of tubes lodged in her arms, and running in rivulets down the walls. The pool on the floor swelled until she was ankle-deep in gore. Sometimes she would even see the doctor, scribbling down notes, or just watching her, still as a statue, but if she reached for her she would vanish in a wisp of black smoke. 

Closing her eyes granted her no relief from the visions. She threw her head back and wailed, until, mercifully, she blacked out.

* * *

Coinín jolted awake at the sound of someone opening door, and couldn’t stop the moan that wrenched itself from her throat. It was her. Her breath was coming too quickly, and her throat constricted. 

O’Deorain clucked her tongue in disapproval, shaking her head like a disappointed parent. “The state of you,” she said. She advanced, chuckling as Coinín scrambled frantically into a corner, drawing her knees up to her chest.

She crouched down before her, smiling knowingly, and Coinín whimpered helplessly as she took her face in her hands. “Now, do you have anything you’d like to say to me?”

She still couldn’t catch her breath. “I’m s-sorry…” she stuttered pathetically, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. 

O’Deorain sighed, smoothing the tears away with her thumbs. “Oh, _mo leanbh_,” she crooned, and Coinín choked back another sob as she unexpectedly gathered her up in her arms. She continued whispering to her with strange gentleness. “Shh, shh. It’s over. All is forgiven.” O’Deorain raked a hand through her blood-matted hair, and she broke. She threw her arms around her, clutching at her clothes and burrowing her face into her neck.

O’Deorain hummed. “That’s it. Good girl. You took it so well.” She snaked a hand under the hem of her gown and rubbed soothing patterns into her back. “You understand why I had to do it, don’t you?” 

O’Deorain went on. “What you did to that man was sick. You’re sick.” Coinín nodded fervently, but she was no longer listening. She went boneless as O’Deorain gripped her thighs and effortlessly lifted her to the bed, allowing her to tug her down. Coinín clambered onto her lap, nuzzling her cheek against her chest and fisting the lapels of her lab coat, and O’Deorain wrapped a long arm around her and rocked her like a child. “But you needn’t worry,” she whispered into her hair.

“I’m going to make you perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn :/ Everyone is a gangster until they are deprived of nearly all human contact and pumped full of hallucinogens :/


	6. Crucifixion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have some nerve writing this mess when I still kick involuntarily while getting blood drawn. Anyway take a shot every time someone sticks Coinín with a needle.

The spell was broken by a knock at the door. O’Deorain shifted. “Set it outside, thank you,” she called. Coinín groaned as she began untangling them. “Come on now, up, up, up,” she encouraged, prying her hands from her clothes, and Coinín released her reluctantly.

O’Deorain stood, straightening her tie and smoothing her coat. She removed a syringe from her pocket, and Coinín glanced up at her with a look of startled betrayal, eyes wide and imploring. “Just something to help you relax,” O’Deorain assured her, and she relented and offered her a trembling arm.

She helped Coinín to her feet and coaxed her into the bathroom. She went out again and returned bearing a plastic basket containing soap, a fresh gown, and—miracle of miracles—a toothbrush. Coinín brushed until her gums were bright pink and her spit was tinged red with blood.

Then she slumped on the bench in the shower and let O’Deorain wash her hair. She watched the pink froth swirl and disappear down the drain, and the last thing she was aware of was O’Deorain humming softly, and whispering gentle praises in a language she didn’t understand.

* * *

She was roused the next morning by a flurry of knocks. Her thoughts were still sluggish from whatever O’Deorain had given her; she stretched, reveling in her cleanliness, and recalled the events of the previous day with a numb kind of horror. She kicked off the blanket—marking that the sheets had been changed, and the floor was spotless—and padded over to the opposite wall, laying down before the door like a sniper, on her belly, with one knee drawn up. A familiar green eye peered back at her.

“Hasam!” she greeted him cheerily. “I thought I lost you.”

“No, no; I’m always catatonic after these...sessions.” His dark brows knit with concern. “Are you all right? Did something happen?” 

She said nothing.

“Did she hurt you?” he pressed.

She thought of the doctor’s long fingers stroking her bare back, of her sharp chin resting on the crown of her head, of the cold, sterile smell under her cologne. “Worse,” she said.

He wriggled his hand under the door until his fingertips brushed her knuckles. His hand was warm. “I’m sorry.”

She heard footsteps in the hallway and snatched her hand away, but relaxed as whoever it was continued past her room. She went to the window and saw a fleet of nurses and doctors, some pushing carts, accompanied by black-clad soldiers.

“What’s all the commotion?” she asked, retreating back to her previous position.

“My guess is someone is about to be very unlucky.”

An uncomfortable silence. Coinín bounced her leg impatiently.

“Is she mad?” she asked.

He sighed. “I used to think so. But now I think it’s just she considers…human suffering…the necessary price of scientific progress. It’s her highest ideal.”

“Sounds like you’ve got her all figured out.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I have a lot of time to think, yes.”

She shrugged. “Hey, I’m famished. Have you got any food over there?”

The eye blinked. “They haven’t brought you anything to eat?”

“No. I guess I haven’t eaten since…breakfast yesterday?” 

He was looking at her with something between pity and abject horror.

She registered the panic slowly. “Hasam?” she asked, failing to mask the terror in her voice.

He swallowed. “It could be something else—”

“Oh, God.” She rolled to her feet.

“Wait! You need to be smart about this—”

She ignored Hasam’s pleas and swept through the room like a whirlwind, looking for something, anything she could use, but of course she found nothing. She’d already torn the room apart a thousand times over. She was struggling to breathe. She paced and she howled and she pounded her fists against the wall, but in the end she just wrapped the sheet around herself and huddled in the back corner, rocking gently, hiding her face behind her knees.

She heard the door unlock. It was too late. She was going to die here. O’Deorain was going to use her up and toss her out when she was finished with her— 

The lights flicked on. “What’s this?” It was her. Of course it was her.

“You’re going to blind me,” Coinín babbled, pressing herself further into the corner as she approached. “You’re going to make me forget my own name—”

“Sh sh shh, who told you that?” O’Deorain knelt, pushing back the hair that had fallen into her face with something resembling tenderness. Coinín searched her face. One eye blue. One eye red as a pool of blood on white linoleum. Her face creased with a worry that looked almost genuine. “All of the changes I’ll be implementing have been rigorously tested,” O’Deorain explained calmly, as if to a child.

She stood and extended a gloved hand. “Don’t make a fuss. Come on. We’ll walk out together.”

She could take it, she thought. She was so tired. It would be easier to just cooperate, to let O’Deorain lead her like a lamb to slaughter. But it wasn’t her way. She was no lamb. Yesterday, she had shown such weakness it made her sick to her stomach. What passed between them had been unspeakably intimate. Indecent. She hated, hated, that O’Deorain had seen her such a state. But beneath her anger was miserable itch of something she hadn’t felt in a long while: shame. 

With a growl like an animal, she launched herself at the doctor—

—and passed right through her, tumbling into empty air. She righted herself and blinked. For a second, her fear was overwhelmed by sheer confusion. Was she still tripping?

She felt something prick her neck.

O’Deorain materialized by the door and swept out of the room, her lab coat fluttering behind her. “I’ll be in surgery,” she called, her voice fading as she went further down the hall. “Don’t rough her up too much.” 

They were on her at once, a blur of green scrubs and black uniforms. She resisted feebly, but her muscles were already giving and she was overpowered easily, wrestled her onto a stretcher. A quick trip down the hall, and they wheeled her into a bright, white-tiled room. She craned her neck, searching for the glint of a knife, as they crucified her to a new table, arms splayed, ankles secured together. Then they filed out, leaving her there like a sacrifice. Andromeda chained to the rock.

O’Deorain hunched over a lab bench with her back turned. All was quiet, save for Coinín’s frantic breathing and the feathery notes of a piano, drifting through the air like dust motes suspended in a beam of sunlight.

“What is that?” she asked breathlessly.

O’Deorain’s movements paused, but she did not turn. “The music? It’s [Chopin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtIW2r1EalM). Helps me focus. Do you like it?”

“No,” she decided with childish stubbornness. “What are you going to do to me?”

O’Deorain resumed her tinkering and ignored her, humming along to the music. 

After a moment, she turned, and Coinín winced as she set the IV. Finally, O’Deorain looked her in the face. “You’re shaking,” she observed.

Her laugh trembled dangerously with hysteria. “I am afraid.” 

“That’s only to be expected,” she said, affixing something something to her forehead. “It’s perfectly natural to fear what you don’t understand. But I can assure you that you’re in capable hands.”

Tears pricked at her eyes. “I hate you,” she said, and meant it.

“Yes,” O’Deorain replied absently, screwing a syringe into the tube protruding from her arm, “I suppose you do.”

Coinín followed whatever it was with her eyes as it snaked down the IV line. Her eyes were beginning to shut of their own accord. “Will it hurt?” she slurred.

O’Deorain stroked her cheek with just the backs of her fingers. “You won’t feel a thing.” 

And she didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up, gamers? If you enjoyed this don't forget to SMASH THAT MF LIKE BUTTON and DROP A COMMENT DOWN BELOW.


	7. Resurrection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day, I will go back and add in all of the italics that were eaten up by the HTML formatting. But not today.

First came the deeply unsettling sensation of being outside of her body. Sometimes she was floating somewhere behind her eyes, or above her head, and sometimes she’d disappear entirely, which was worst of all. Distantly, she registered the comings and goings of various staff, and that she was back in her own room. Her thoughts came slowly, laboriously, but by the time O’Deorain arrived, the fog that had settled over her mind was finally beginning to lift.

From the doorway, she smiled at her with infuriating smugness. “There, was that so bad?”

Coinín fixed her with the most withering glare she could muster. “You lobotomized me.”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed, crossing the room. “Don’t be daft. That’s medieval.” 

She gripped her chin with little warning, turned her head this way and that. What had transpired, while she was out? Were they so familiar, now? A disturbing thing to consider.

She took her seat by the bed, crossing her ridiculous legs. “Tell me how you’re feeling.”

“My jaw hurts. I keep going away.”

She nodded, returning to her notes. “Muscle aches and dissociation are normal. Both should subside within the day. You told a nurse about an hour ago that you felt ‘soft.’ Do you remember that?”

“No,” she snapped, unnerved. “These ‘nurses’ of yours have deplorable manners, you know. Most of them won’t even pay me a glance.”

“Yes, well.” She scribbled something down. “I encourage most of my staff to refer to subjects by number, and to avoid addressing them directly.”

This hadn’t actually occurred to her. “Why?”

She capped her pen. “For the same reason I don’t name my lab rabbits, sweet. To keep them from forming any…inconvenient attachments.”

“What keeps you?” she asked before she could stop herself. _Oh, Christ._

But O’Deorain only laughed, low and haughty. “What indeed?” she wondered, affectionately running a hand over her hair. “Little coinín.”

She wrote it into her chart that night.

And that was that.

* * *

She’d been suspicious when O’Deorain announced that they would be trying something new today, but she’d laid down as instructed, lifted her hips obligingly when O’Deorain made to hike up her gown, and as she watched O’Deorain’s inscrutable face as she dotted her chest with electrodes, the beginnings of a morbid new strategy were taking shape.

They fell into a new routine. It went like this: O’Deorain would collect her and show her to a horrid little room with a treadmill, where she’d be hooked up to a monitor and instructed to run, the steel collar thudding uncomfortably against her chest. The room would fill with with the sound of her bare feet slapping against the belt, punctuated by the chirping of the monitors, and, gradually, the speed would increase until her legs were screaming and she was gasping for air. Then O’Deorain would return, offer her a cup of water, and escort her back to her room, where she’d have a shower and someone would bring by her lunch.

She gripped the edge of the sink and scrutinized her reflection. She looked like a corpse, she thought. Her hair had grown, and it hung limply around her face. Her skin had taken on a sallow, grayish hue, which she attributed to the lack of sunlight, and her eyes were perpetually bloodshot, giving her the appearance that she was always on the verge of tears. She squeezed them shut and pressed her forehead to the glass.

* * *

“Please don’t go!” she blurted as O’Deorain was making to leave.

She paused at the door, and Coinín thought her face softened, almost imperceptibly. “I have work to do.”

“You could work here,” she offered. (She would hate herself for this later, for flinging herself at this despicable woman as shamelessly as a whore.)

O’Deorain glanced at the desk and tapped one talon against her lip, considering. “Suppose I could.”

* * *

“Your face is clean shaven,” she remarked to Hasam one day. “Did they give you a razor?”

He smoothed a hand over his face. “Yes, but I can only use it under supervision, so don’t ask.”

“How did you manage that? I wouldn’t mind a few things myself.”

His eyebrows raised. “Have you tried asking?”

She hadn’t.

* * *

It was getting colder. She wondered if the seasons were changing, or if O’Deorain was lowering the temperature just to fuck with her. 

“I’m cold,” she announced to the figure bent over the desk, scrutinizing a data pad. 

O’Deorain did not lift her eyes from the device. "[Hm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXC4Ey9ZXEE).”

“Can I have a blanket?” she tried.

Her long fingers tapped a quick sequence across the screen. “Closer…”

Infuriating woman. “Can I have a blanket, please?” she asked as sweetly as she could manage through bared teeth.

Finally, O’Deorain set the tablet down, stretching her arms over her head and popping her neck obscenely. “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it? I’ll fetch one when I finish this cup.” She lifted it and took a sip for emphasis.

Coinín decided to press her luck. “Could you also bring me…something to read?”

She raised an eyebrow suspiciously behind her mug. “Something to read?”

“I’ll read anything, really. You must understand it gets very boring around here without your…charming company.”

The corner of her lips quirked amusedly. “I’ll see what I can find.”

* * *

Truthfully, she’d more expected a nondescript fleece blanket and some old medical journal, so she was pleasantly surprised when O’Deorain returned with a lovely old afghan in autumn colors and a well-loved collection of plays by Oscar Wilde.

She flipped it open to “The Critic as Artist.” “I didn’t take you for an aesthete, Doctor,” she teased.

O’Deorain set the fresh cup down carefully. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“Evidently. I’d have thought you’d find this kind of preoccupation with philosophy—morality—to be…tedious.” 

“I’ll not be lectured on morality by a common cutthroat,” she replied tartly.

Coinín clutched her chest dramatically. “Oh, you wound me! And it’s not as though I’m completely without standards. Most everyone they send me after has it coming.” 

Her pale brows rose. “Really? How about that pub, in Madrid?”

“Are you a fan of my work, O’Deorain?” she asked, lips spreading into a grin.

She made a derisive sound in the back of her throat. “Hardly.”

“Well, if you were, you’d know everyone inside was guilty as sin.”

“And the owner? He had no criminal ties.”

“Ugh!” She made a face. “If you’d tasted what he was trying to pass off as beer, you’d have shot him, too.”

“You’re incorrigible,” she said, but she was smiling.

She smiled back, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders and over her head, like a hood, and breathed in deeply. It smelled like her.

* * *

“Do you have a brush?” Coinín asked, still dripping from the shower.

O’Deorain rummaged about in her satchel and produced a pocket comb, and motioned her closer with a crook of her fingers.

She took a seat on the floor before her, situated herself between her knees, and O’Deorain began to work the comb through her hair, even allowed her to rest her head against her knee, leaving a wet splotch on her trousers. Coinín swallowed back the bile rising in her throat, and let her eyes close. She still continued to comb a while after her hair had been fully detangled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, we will return to our regularly scheduled nastiness. Comments are always appreciated. Your opinion matters to us here at Mindforgdmanacles, inc.


	8. Pray

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay! My studies always take priority. I'm excited for this one, though. And I really like the trope of people committing violent atrocities to classical music or opera :-)

“She’s been spending an awful lot of time with you,” Hasam said carefully. They had been playing a game, one Hasam taught her, that involved listing words in alphabetical order.

Coinín grinned. “Mhm. I’ve got her wrapped around my little finger.”

“Are you sure she hasn’t gotten you wrapped around hers?”

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Can’t you see she’s making a pet of you? Just because she keeps you on a long leash—”

“You don’t know anything,” she snapped, panic rising. “You’re—you’re jealous she finds me more interesting—”

She heard familiar footfalls outside the door, and threw herself back onto the bed. 

O’Deorain let herself in, took her usual seat by the bed. “Good morning,” she greeted her. 

“Good morning,” Coinín echoed back.

If she suspected anything, she did not show it. “We’re going to have another treatment today.” She thrummed her nails against the desk as she waited for her to say something.

When Coinín just watched her hand mutely, she cleared her throat and asked, “Are you going to fight me this time?”

Her mouth was dry. “I’m…I’m not sure.” Hasam’s accusation was making her itch.

O’Deorain shifted, hunching forward to support herself on her elbows braced against her thighs. Her tie (black, today) dangled between her knees. “It will be just the same as before. No pain. A bit of confusion.”

Coinín swallowed. “Do you promise?” she asked very quietly.

O’Deorain leaned forward and clasped her face between her hands, and Coinín sighed as she brought it up to hers. Close enough to kiss, she thought, or to bite. “I promise.”

* * *

It was hard to recall much of what happened after that. She did remember the white room, and the murmur of some faint melody (“Chopin?” she asked, and her voice only trembled a little. “[Dvorak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=disqzLW1QJA),” the doctor corrected, amusement evident in her mismatched eyes even as her mouth was obscured by a white mask.)

When she woke, she was still humming.

O’Deorain was closer than she ought to have been. “And how are we feeling?” she purred into her ear.

It was a pleasant, floaty kind of feeling. “Soft,” she hummed happily.

The rest was much the same as before, only her chest was bandaged, and when a nurse came by to change the gauze she saw a meticulous line of stitches marching down her sternum, like a zipper. O’Deorain plucked them from her chest the next day. As she worked, Coinín noted the crease that appeared between her brows as she concentrated, and that her lips were nearly colorless, and that the brilliant copper of her hair was going silvery at her temples, and that her eyebrows and lashes were thin and nearly transparent, giving her an alien look that she made no attempt to conceal with cosmetics, and she realized, distantly, that she was the single most beautiful person she’d ever seen. 

The wound was entirely healed by the next day, leaving only a pale violet scar.

* * *

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the green eye under the door, though she couldn’t recall exactly what for.

The eye shone. “I know. So am I. I just…don’t understand it.”

Coinín traced a crack in the linoleum with her fingernail.

“Maybe she’s lonely,” he suggested.

She doubted it.

* * *

The changes were more definite, now. The cold spells stopped, but her nail beds were stained a deep purple. Even her lips had taken on bluish tint, like a drowned person’s, or a baby left out in the cold.

She asked O’Deorain about it as she pricked her finger one day. 

She squeezed it, and a drop of blood swelled dark as a blot of ink. “Peripheral cyanosis,” she answered vaguely.

She went over to the counter to prep the bloodwork. “You’re coming along nicely, _coinín_. Very nicely. The headaches should stop by tonight.”

She leaned back against the pillow. “And the bruising?”

O’Deorain’s hands stilled over the samples, and she knew she’d said something very wrong. “Bruising?”

In her foggy state, it took a surprising amount of effort to come to the next grim realization. Her mounting alarm dissipated into a cold kind of numbness. Another miscalculation. She dug her thumb into a bruise on her ribs, relishing in the hurt of it. 

O’Deorain seemed to recover. “You’ll be more susceptible to bruising as you heal. It’s nothing to worry about.”

* * *

The next day, O’Deorain deemed she was healthy enough to continue with the endurance tests, much to her chagrin. 

It was harder than before. Whether this was due to her time spent bedridden or O’Deorain opening her up and tinkering with her physiology, she was not sure. 

Her lungs felt raw. “Can I stop?” she managed to pant out.

The person administering the test looked up. He was a mousy little man in spectacles. “A little longer.”

“Please? I—I think I’m going to—”

“Just a little longer,” he repeated, annoyed. 

Black spots were dancing in her periphery, pulsing in time with her heartbeat. _A little longer._ A wave of purple washed over her vision, and she was swept away.

* * *

She emerged from unconsciousness reluctantly, and found the waking world was a violent cacophony of sounds: the shrieking of machines, shouts from the staff, their frenzied movements. It hurt. Coinín retreated into herself and tried to sink back into the comfortable nothingness.

“—are dropping—”

“—is going to skin you—”

“—not breathing!”

A familiar voice cut through the chaos. “Oxygen, now.”

Something clamped over her mouth and nose, like a hand. She gulped the air down greedily, and the pain in her chest diminished somewhat.

When her eyes focused, the first thing she saw was O’Deorain leaning over her, her face creased with something dangerously close to worry. White-clad figures clustered around them like a flock of angels.

The mouse appeared again, wringing his hands. “You must understand, we had no way of knowing—”

O’Deorain stood, her face twisting into a snarl. She towered over him. “Your incompetence could have jeopardized the Widowmaker Project,” she growled, and shoved him, sending him stumbling backwards. From the floor, Coinín watched, enraptured, as she grasped the lapels of his coat and shook him like a doll. His spectacles clattered to the floor, almost within reach. Would she kill him? Coinín groaned into the mask, but no one seemed to notice.

Someone was kneeling beside her, murmuring something soothing and incoherent. She felt the pinch of a needle, and her eyes closed again.

* * *

She awoke in her own quarters. She opened her eyes without moving. O’Deorain was at the desk, her face illuminated by the blue light of her data pad. She must have felt herself being watched, because her eyes snapped up a moment after.

“Ah, you’re awake. I’m quite sorry about all that, earlier.”

Coinín pushed herself up to a sitting position. “Yes, it was all terribly unprofessional. I’m going to have to remove a star from my Yelp review.”

She chuckled, standing and rolling the office chair to her bedside. “At least I can assure you that the staff member in question has been dealt with.” She seated herself and crossed her legs with an effortless kind of elegance that, Coinín thought, belied her awkward proportions.

“Oh, that’s too bad. I was hoping you’d let me have him.”

O’Deorain regarded her. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” she answered instantly. “Wouldn’t you?”

O’Deorain smiled, fondly patronizing. “Such a violent little thing you are. You made a dog’s breakfast of that poor nurse. I saw the way you licked his blood off your fingers like it was cake frosting.”

“The way I—” She reconsidered. “You _wanted_ that, didn’t you?” she asked, and O’Deorain’s smug little smile widened. “Did you send him to me, like a sacrificial lamb? Did you…did you _watch_?”

She licked her lips and very slightly inclined her chin, in a challenging sort of way. “I watched.”

And Coinín wanted to scream, wanted to rip her apart, to unspool her innards like a skein of yarn, but instead she leaned forward and caught her lower lip between her teeth and sucked it like a sweet.

It only lasted a second. She did not kiss her back, nor did she resist. When Coinín pulled away she remained rigid as a statue, her expression unreadable, and for one horrifying moment Coinín was sure she’d made a terrible miscalculation. But then O’Deorain yanked her by the back of the hair so that her head snapped back and her mouth fell open, and she returned the kiss with terrifying gentleness. 

And then it was over. She stood and tipped Coinín’s face up with her malformed hand, tracing the outline of her lips with the tip of her sharpened thumbnail. “I have an engagement this afternoon. We’ll continue this conversation later,” The nail slipped between Coinín’s lips and tapped her front teeth, twice. “Hm?” She smiled a fox’s smile. She turned, and Coinín watched her leave.

When she could no longer hear her footsteps, Coinín knelt by the entrance to the adjacent room. There was a long silence before he spoke. “You should pray,” Hasam told her very seriously, and she threw back her head and laughed.

Then she undressed, got into the shower, and scrubbed herself raw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you lot be interested in the playlists I've been amassing around the general mood of this piece? I'm collecting sinister classical music too. Think of it like a suggested wine pairing.
> 
> Don't forget to validate me :^)


	9. Bitter Taste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Terribly sorry for the wait! The chapter I was working on was nearly three times as long as any previous, so I decided to carve it up and hopefully post it within the upcoming weeks. 
> 
> Special thanks to www.archiveofourown.org user SheegothBait for her most valuable input on matters ranging from pharmacological torture to classical music to Jesus. If any of you are inclined to send me longer messages, I have an empty www.fanfiction.net account under the same name which exists for this purpose.

She did return that evening, to administer her nighttime medication and take her vitals. There was a noticeable shift in her demeanor. Coinín wondered if she was having reservations about their earlier episode. She moved quickly, efficiently, but she wore an unreadable expression and her thoughts were obviously elsewhere. Coinín reached for her hand experimentally when she finished taking her pulse, but she snatched it away, frowning. Then her face softened just a fraction, and she bent down and kissed her lightly between the brows. Perhaps physical closeness was reserved for when she was hurt, she thought.

She wished she would hurt her again. 

O’Deorain rose suddenly, and wheeled the chair back over to the desk. She cleared her throat. “I’m leaving tomorrow on business—Don’t look at me like that. I do have a life outside of you, you realize.”

She wished she could say the same. “How long?”

“Couldn’t say,” she said, airily, returning to her bedside. Her face contorted in mock-pity. “Poor dear,” she muttered distractedly, fondly running a hand over Coinín’s matted hair.

“What’s the Widowmaker Project?”

She removed her hand, and gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Be on your best behavior. I’ll be watching,” she added, flicking her eyes toward the ceiling.

Coinín followed her gaze, scouring the tiles for the hidden camera to which she was alluding, but saw nothing. She thought: G-U-L-L-I-B-L-E.

* * *

“…me, _coinín_?” a faraway voice called, as if from the bottom of a well. Gloved fingers were snapping just inches from her face. 

She blinked as her soul settled back into her body, like a kite being reeled in. “You could just ask my name, you know?”

“I don’t want it,” she said coldly. Then, more gently: “Has it been getting worse?”

Helpless tears pricked at her eyes. “I hate this.”

A cold hand cupped the back of her neck, her thumb smoothing over the place where the collar had sat. “I know, sweetness. It will stop soon, I promise. I’ll give you something to sleep.”

The small, bright pain of the needle grounded her. She had been going away an awful lot. She feared one day she wouldn’t come back.

* * *

“Mutagenesis,” said Hasam at last, carefully annunciating each syllable.

She thought a moment. “Neural reconditioning.”

“Oxyhemoglobin.”

“Peripheral cyanosis,” she said, eyeing her own bluish fingertips. Something else was nagging at her. “Hasam, does she really get a feed of our rooms?”

His face sagged, and a little flare of anger kindled itself in her chest.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

She saw a distorted version of herself reflected in his green eye. “I was lonely,” he murmured.

She could hardly fault him that.

* * *

Hasam did not come to the door the next day. Or the day after that. Coinín did her best to keep busy. She occupied herself now with the Wilde O’Deorain lent her. Salomé was gloating to the severed head of John the Baptist, a man who had condemned her lascivious behavior and scorned her advances in life. O’Deorain had scored a black line down the margin of the whole monologue. Was this where her thoughts went, when she undressed her with practiced indifference, when she groped her anesthetized body, when she kissed her? 

_“There was a bitter taste on thy lips. Was it the taste of blood…? But perchance it is the taste of love…They say that love hath a bitter taste. But what of that? What of that?”_

The soldiers bashed Salomé to death with their shields, and Coinín slammed the book shut.

* * *

She was losing time, she knew. There were definite gaps in the moth-eaten cloth of her memory. This realization would accompany a brief jolt of panic, but she was always quickly enveloped again in a comfortable, indifferent numbness.

She braced her forearms on the edge of the sink and leaned over the basin to scrutinize her reflection. She’d lost more weight, and it gave her a cruel, angular look. There were deep, marbled bruises in the creases of her elbows from all the needles. Two puckered scars arced from under her breasts to just below her shoulder blades, like severed wings. She frowned. When had she gotten those? 

There was also a fine cut at the base of her throat, already scabbed over. It could have been nothing. But maybe she left it there purposefully, to remind her of her place in the scheme of things, of what a simple thing it would be to end her life. Or maybe she’d just missed the sight of her blood.

* * *

Somewhere else, Moira O’Deorain shrugged off her lab coat onto the back of her chair. On her tablet, a slight girl in a blue gown was strangling one of her underlings with his own stethoscope.

She was terrible, wild-eyed and savage, and yet completely at home in her element, in violence. Her creation gripped the man by the hair and and slammed his face into the bed frame, again and again, and she wished, not for the first time, that the surveillance system had audio capabilities. It thrilled her, to think those same little hands had trembled in her own, that she had worn her blood just as she now wore his.

She heard someone at the door, and switched the display to a live feed of the room.

In her absence, her subject spent long stretches of time waiting for the boy, curled up on the floor before the door that joined their rooms, though of course he wouldn’t come. She’d seen to that. Now, she sat on her bed with the book open and resting on her knees, and her blanket wrapped snuggly around her shoulders and over her head, like a monk’s cowl. She looked deceptively fragile like that. Cute, even. She had sweet, doll-like features almost made one want to protect her, to love her. But there was something horrible in her eyes, some deep, unsettling intelligence that utterly undermined any innocence of her exterior. Moira was suddenly anxious to return to the facility, to her domain, where she could control every facet of this girl’s reality down to the temperature of her room.

The door opened, and the hulking figure of Gabriel Reyes entered and seated himself across the table. He looked comically out of place in the corporate setting, dwarfed the wheeled office chair beneath him.

“So!” he began jovially, peering at the tablet screen. “Tell me how our extracurricular projects are coming along.”

Right to business, then. He knew she had little patience for small talk. “The reprogramming is coming along admirably,” she said. “I project that the desired result will be achieved within the next few treatments.”

He leaned back, and the springs within the chair shrieked in protest. “A clean slate.”

“Something like that, yes. I’ll be curious to see if she retains any of her previous abilities, after the reconditioning takes.”

“She assaulted another doctor, didn’t she? Got him pretty good, if I recall. Must’ve been something, putting him back together…”

She waved dismissively. “A thing of the past. She’ll be gentle as a lamb. If I can subdue that brat, a mere civilian will be no great challenge.”

“Brat?” he asked, amused.

“Her handlers kept her on a very long leash, evidently. She’s like an unruly child. She lacked structure, discipline. And the boy is a stabilizing influence.”

“You could’ve chosen someone softer.”

“Actually, it has been surprisingly advantageous to study the mind of someone so taken with violence, with killing. She exhibits some neurostructural abnormalities associated with sociopathy and psychopathy. I believe I can engineer a similar response in the Lacroix girl.”

“What about the physical changes?”

“Her heart beats at half the speed of yours or mine, which necessitated that her cells work twice as efficiently. This conundrum gave me some trouble in the past, but I believe I’ve worked out a solution. I halted treatment before the discoloration became too pronounced,” she finished, and she did not miss the way he glanced at her hand.

He nodded. “The council will be pleased,” he said, and she felt a swell of pride not entirely unlike that which a mother feels for her child. “Should I get her approved for training, then?”

“No, no,” she interjected, and cursed herself. “I don’t think so. I think…I think I’d like to keep her.” She smiled mirthlessly. “Consider her part of my compensation, if you like.”

He sighed heavily, considering. “You know I’ve always accommodated your…appetites.” 

A tight smile. “And I yours.”

“I just worry…what happens if you get bored of her?”

“I can clean up my own messes, Gabriel.”

He shrugged, turning back to where girl reclined on the cot, wearing a blissfully empty expression, her palms upturned and her hair splayed around her head like a halo. “She looks like her,” Reyes said after a moment.

Moira looked up, unnerved. “What?”

His dark brows rose. “You think I wouldn’t notice?” he asked, and her lips pressed into a hard line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it interests you, here is a [Pinterest board](https://pin.it/g5el6xb5poxa7t) I made for this story. It really helps my writing to marinate in the atmosphere.
> 
> Don't forget to tell me to kill myself in the comments!
> 
> * * *
> 
> my friend: what's your video game story about, anyway?
> 
> me in my head: well it's a romance between two women with a morbid infatuation with death and violence which one represses and the other lets run amok and they fascinate and horrify each other because the second represents what the first could become if her control were ever to slip
> 
> me out loud: uhhhhh it's like killing eve but they're BOTH terrible


	10. Warmth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How many biblical allusions can I make before the pope sends his assassins after me?

Moira had expected to find her sleeping, but upon her entry, her eyes snapped open, fixed on her, and quietly watched her approach.

She pulled on a mask of practiced indifference. “Oh, you’re up. I didn’t want to wake you. I’m told you haven’t been sleeping properly.”

Coinín pushed herself upright. She must have had a shower recently; her wet swathe of hair had soaked through the collar of her gown. Her skin was still slick, and had of patches inflammation; she made a mental note to limit her to one shower per day, and perhaps to switch her to a milder soap. Her eyes burned with something too hot to be outright fear, but their intensity had diminished, which pleased her. It was so _satisfying_ to watch her vivacity fade, in much the same way it was satisfying to kiss her or cradle her or comb out her hair knowing she’d once crushed someone’s windpipe in her jaws, and that she’d likely fantasized about doing the same to her. _I know every inch of you,_ she thought. _As a mother knows her own child. Better. There is no part of you I cannot possess._

She was going to say something else when Coinín abruptly lurched forward, and, before O’Deorain had any time to be alarmed, threw her arms about her waist. How curious. 

“Yes, yes, hello there,” she said, stiffly patting her head. She made a move to push her away, but instead of releasing her, she began to tremble rather violently. Her breath came in short little gulps. The wretch was actually weeping.

Poor emotional regulation. She’d have to make a note.

* * *

“You’re shaking,” O’Deorain remarked, startling her out of her thoughts.

She swallowed. “You have cold hands.”

“My apologies,” she said curtly, but she let her hand trail over Coinín’s collarbones as she retreated back to the desk. She snapped off her gloves and tossed them into the bin, and began to enter something into her tablet.

Coinín waited a beat, and wet her lips. “What’s the Widowmaker Project?” 

O’Deorain stopped typing. She steepled her fingers, and regarded her. “Come here,” she commanded finally, patting her knee. This was something new. Coinín moved to her and hesitantly seated herself on her thigh.

She searched the doctor’s face for any signs of displeasure. O’Deorain was watching her through half-lidded eyes with an air that was at once fond and vaguely contemptuous, like that of an indulgent monarch. Yes, that was right. O’Deorain was some bored aristocrat, and she was little more than the evening’s entertainment. An indulgence, maybe. Like a glass of fine wine, or a cigar. _(You are always looking at her. You look at her too much. It is dangerous to look at people in such fashion. Something terrible may happen.)_

Her look remained severe, but, sensing Coinín’s reluctance, she brought a hand to her hair and trailed her nails lightly over her scalp. It felt nice, and she leaned into the touch. “Have you missed me?” O’Deorain asked, the hand moving from her hair to cup her jaw. Coinín nodded into her palm. She was all angles; there was nothing soft about her. _ (You must not look at her. You look too much at her.)_ “Kiss me,” she instructed coolly, and Coinín obeyed, slow and yielding, and she hummed thoughtfully into her mouth.

When she drew back, she was wearing a strange, glassy expression, but her eyes were bright. _(You must not look at her! You are always looking at her!) _“The Widowmaker Project,” she breathed, “is my magnum opus. Do you want me to show you?”

She tapped a sequence into her tablet, and a cyclone of holographic documents, files, images, and videos erupted from the screen. They drifted through the air between them like snowflakes. Coinín felt O’Deorain’s eyes on her face, carefully gauging her reaction. One photo of a ballerina mid-leap drew her eye. Her face was obscured by a feathered mask. The harsh stage lighting deepened the shadows in the picture, exaggerating the outline of each of her taut muscles. The effect was monstrous. 

“Amelie Lacroix,” O’Deorain explained. The name was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Another image of a blackened hand, the flesh slipping from the bone, her made stomach roil. “Necrosis. From my earlier attempts to achieve your condition.”

She reached for her disfigured hand, and, encountering no resistance, pressed her own up against it, palm to palm. Her hand was like a child’s next to O’Deorain’s. She thought very hard. “I’m a…prototype.”

O’Deorain shrugged noncommittally. “If you like.”

Another cluster of charts and diagrams floated into view, and with a start, she recognized a photo of herself among them, her eyelids taped shut.

“I record every procedure,” O’Deorain said slowly. Something dark had crept into her voice, and it made Coinín dread. “Would you like to watch one?” She selected it, and the image started to move.

In the hologram, O’Deorain dragged a scalpel down her bare chest, and she split open like a fruit. She was overcome suddenly by a heady, nauseous sensation she hadn’t felt at the sight of gore for a long while. She’d seen her share of carnage, had desensitized herself to it, but there was something profoundly _wrong_ about seeing herself like this: naked, sleeping peacefully on the table, while O’Deorain used a steel contraption to pry her chest open, exposing her shivering red insides. She registered distantly that one of O’Deorain’s nails was tracing soothing circles over her knee. She felt oddly compelled to keep watching, even as her vision went wobbly and unfocused. _(Do not look at her I pray you not to look at her.)_Unconsciously, her hand dipped beneath the collar of her gown to finger the raised scar over her sternum, and O’Deorain’s hand moved to cover her own over the fabric of her shift. Then she sank her sharp thumbnail into the valley between her breasts and dragged a searing line downwards, and a strangled noise escaped Coinín’s throat. She rocked against her leg once, before she could stop herself.

“Oh?” Arching an eyebrow, O’Deorain lifted her from under the thighs, repositioning them so that she was straddling her leg. Coinín hissed as her large hands took hold of her waist and roughly scraped her hips against her thigh. To be so inundated with physical sensation, with touch, after so very long in isolation—it was almost unbearable. “Tell me how you’re feeling, _coinín._”

Ashamed. Disgusted. Scared out of her mind. Ravenous. “Warm,” is what she said. It was the truth. For the first time since she came here, she felt warm. _(Why do you speak to her? Why do you look at her? Oh! Something terrible will happen.)_

One of O’Deorain’s hands pressed against the side of her face, and the other remained on her thigh. It was a comfortable weight. “Do you want this?” she rasped into her ear, “Or have you just run out of leverage?”

“I don’t know,” she said, but she did, she did, she did.

And when O’Deorain tugged at the ties to her gown, she didn’t stop her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'll be doing a bit of revising, and correcting some inconsistencies. You RATS let me use 123974938 variations of the name "Hasam." Your comments are appreciated, as always.


	11. Filthy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive me forgive me forgive me forgive me forgive me forgive me forgive me forgive me forgive me forgive me forgive me forgive me forgive me forgiv

She’d decided early on what lengths she would go to to ensure her own survival. She had anticipated this. Enabled it, even. Still, she couldn’t shake this bitter revulsion at herself, at being reduced to the plaything of a lunatic. At how violently, wretchedly, she’d come to crave the touch of a fellow human being. 

Even hers. Especially hers. 

O’Deorain herself tended towards the sadistic, but she was a control freak and a megalomaniac, and her sexual proclivities came as no great surprise. She was quick to punish, and slow to reward. Spare the rod, spoil the child, she was fond of saying. Coinín took a special joy in trying her patience, in chipping away at her chilly composure. It felt good to play at resistance, to wear herself out; the violence of it soothed her conscious, and she expected O’Deorain enjoyed having something to work out her frustrations on, something that wasn’t afraid to hit back. It was a highly efficient system, she thought: she could experience pleasure at the hands of her tormenter and be punished for it in the same second. O’Deorain, for her part, excelled at discovering new and interesting ways to hurt her, be it by her clever surgeon’s hands, her sharp nails, her teeth, or even the rare scalpel.

* * *

“Did you know,” O’Deorain said conversationally, “that adrenaline has been found to heighten sexual pleasure? In fact, the physiological symptoms of fear—shortness of breath, increased heart rate—can be mistaken for those of arousal. Such responses originate in the hypothalamus,”—she pressed a fingertip, sticky with blood, to Coinín’s temple—“right here. Pain, too, triggers the release of endorphins. In psychology, this phenomenon is known as misattribution of arousal.” She used two gloved fingers to stretch the cut open obscenely, and Coinín choked on her tongue.

* * *

“Such a lucky thing I found you, isn’t it? You were wasted on petty gang disputes. This is clearly what you’re for.” 

“I hate you,” Coinín ground out, “so fucking much.”

Moira bit the inside of her cheek, and girl beneath her yelped as she slid into her like a knife. She would have arched off the table if she weren’t pinned under her elbow. She hushed her and whispered sweet nothings into her ear: told her all the ways she’d like to take her apart, what a delight she was to hurt, how it felt to cut her open and bury her arm in her body up to the elbow.

Moira had almost hoped she might feel something like guilt at cavorting with a patient—a subject—in such a manner. But she didn’t.

She didn’t feel much of anything, really.

* * *

Once, at Coinín’s suggestion, O’Deorain administered something to make her more manageable. Her vision wobbled and refracted, as if she were underwater. Everywhere O’Deorain touched her, her blood bubbled like champagne. She laughed a light, glittering laugh. “I adore you like this,” O’Deorain had crooned into her ear. “So pliant. So easily bent to my will. You’re going to give me everything I want, aren’t you?” She only nodded dazedly in response.

* * *

Afterwards, O’Deorain might take her into her lap while she responded to messages or did some light reading, and Coinín would tuck her head under her chin and press her ear to her heart. Her fingers would dig into her neck for her own pulse, which came almost exactly half as fast.

* * *

It wasn’t always sexual. Sometimes, O’Deorain was content to lay down beside her, to burrow her face into her hair and clutch her like a doll.

The other day, she barely even acknowledged her as she sat down to work. She finally deigned to glance down at her when she seated herself at her feet. 

“Such a needy thing,” she sneered. 

_You’re the one who keeps coming back,_ Coinín thought, but she did not say this. Instead, she leaned her cheek against the scratchy fabric of her slacks, and O’Deorain stroked her hair with something like tenderness.

* * *

O’Deorain rarely undressed beyond loosening her tie and popping open a few buttons. She would usually wave off her offers of reciprocation. It might have been a power play, but more likely, she thought, O’Deorain just didn’t fancy her nails—or her teeth—in such close proximity to her genitals. The thought made her smile.

* * *

Sitting up in bed, Coinín cracked her neck, and realized belatedly that she had company. “You’re still here?” she asked blearily.

“No rest for the wicked,” O’Deorain deadpanned without looking away from the monitor, which made her snort.

Coinín sauntered across the room and behind her chair, draping her arms around her neck and letting her chin rest on her shoulder. O’Deorain patted her wrist in acknowledgement. “Five more minutes, pet.” She pouted and returned to her bed, but not before her clever fingers snaked into O’Deorain’s breast pocket.

She opened her book and, with great effort, struggled through one page, after which she could no longer make sense of the letters. Reading was challenging, these days.

“Alright,” O’Deorain said at last. She laced her fingers together and raised her arms over her head, stretching luxuriantly. Then she patted her pockets, and frowned.

“Looking for these?” Coinín asked, shaking the cigarette carton tauntingly.

O’Deorain narrowed her eyes. “Ah. And here I thought you were just being sweet.”

She grinned wickedly. “I am never being sweet.” She rocked on her heels. “Let me come too.” 

She knew O’Deorain didn’t take kindly to any challenge to her authority, but she was counting on her to be too exhausted to protest. “Fine,” she sighed, and Coinín tried to hide her excitement. “But bring your blanket. There’s a nip in the air.”

They went out, and O’Deorain wrapped her hand around her upper arm, just tightly enough to be uncomfortable. Did she really think she’d try to run? They rounded a corner, and another, and Coinín wondered if the path they were taking wasn’t deliberately circuitous. Finally, they stopped at a wall of glass, and O’Deorain dropped her arm and opened the door for her with an air of slightly mocking chivalry.

It was a sad little courtyard, hexagonal in shape, and enclosed on all sides by the windows of the building. It had been poorly maintained since the building had been repurposed, she expected, and the plants were wild and overgrown. Still, she couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up in her throat at sight of it, at the absurdity of this bubble of life amidst all this sterility and death, and O’Deorain arched an eyebrow at her curiously. She seated herself on a lonely wooden bench, and Coinín heard the snick of a lighter. She felt her eyes on her as she explored the garden.

O’Deorain had spoken true: it was a chilly night, and the cold numbed her fingers and toes. Still, the gravel was almost painful against the soft soles of her feet. Here was a bush, red and bare and scraggly, like lobsters’ legs, and another with pointed green leaves interspersed with clusters of bright red berries. She crushed one between her fingers and it spurted a little droplet of fluid, thick and yellow, like puss.

She could smell the cigarette on the brisk night air. It was a comforting, familiar smell. Coinín moved to the bench and sat down by O’Deorain, just close enough that their thighs brushed. She bumped her shoulder playfully. “Those’ll kill you, you know.”

“Oh, don’t you lecture me. I’ve seen your lungs, you know.”

Of course. She suppressed a shiver, and decided to press her luck. “Give me a hit.”

She exhaled another plume of smoke. “I hardly think you’re in any position to be making demands of me.”

“Please?”

“Absolutely not. Do you have any idea how long I spent on those lungs?”

“Just one.”

She sighed. “I shouldn’t spoil you like this.” Her long fingers brought the cigarette to Coinín’s lips. “Just one.”

She sucked in, and promptly collapsed into a violent coughing fit. O’Deorain’s laugh rang out through the empty garden, and she fixed her with what she hoped was a withering glare.

“What did I tell you?”

She thought of stuffing the lit cigarette into her mouth, and clamping her hand over her lips. Then she thought of her pink, virgin lungs, and wondered if O’Deorain was making her new and clean again, giving her a body no one else had touched.

* * *

“Hypoxia.”

“Intravenous.” He had already said that the round before last.

“Jaundice.”

There was shouting in the hallway. “What’s all the ruckus about?” Coinín asked.

Hasam listened a moment. “Someone’s offed themselves,” he said.

That was news. “How?” she inquired, a tad too eagerly.

“Coinín. That’s your name, isn’t it?” She bristled. “Where you serious when you said you’d help me get out too, if you can?”

“I did. But you realize—”

“You promise?”

She sighed defeatedly. “I promise,” she said, and meant it.

* * *

“Meds,” O’Deorain announced, rattling a paper cup of pills. Coinín took the pills from her while she went to the sink to fill her a cup of water. She peered into the cup. Two oblong and pink, one big, round and white, two grainy and brown. She scrunched up her nose. O’Deorain brought her the water and she knocked them all back, swallowing them in one gulp.

“Open.”

She obeyed, and, gripping her jaw firmly in one glove-clad hand, O’Deorain thrust the fingers of the other into her mouth, probing under her tongue, into the pocket between her gums and her cheek, behind her molars. Her eyes watered, and she focused on resisting the urge to gag. Satisfied, O’Deorain removed her fingers, and Coinín wiped a bit of drool on the back of her hand. O’Deorain sat back in her chair, and resumed jotting down more nonsense. 

Coinín liked to watch her face while she worked. She had purplish rings under her eyes, and her near translucent eyelids were crisscrossed with thin blue veins. Occasionally, she worried her chapped bottom lip with her teeth. 

“I’m in love with you,” Coinín said suddenly.

O’Deorain gaped at her in wide-eyed surprise. Then she threw back her head and laughed, low and condescending. “Yes, I expect you are.”

It was about the response she’d anticipated, but her cheeks still burned. “I’m serious,” she insisted. “You’re all I think about.”

O’Deorain stroked her cheek fondly, her fingers still wet with her saliva. Her hands had stopped feeling cold a long time ago. “I’m all you have to think about, my dear.”

“Don’t you love me?” she pressed.

“Hmm,” O’Deorain sighed, tapping a nail against her lip contemplatively. “Yes,” was her conclusion. “I expect I do.”

* * *

She longed for a shower, but O’Deorain had imposed limits on her bathing privileges, which the nurses enforced in her stead. She could no longer keep up with her comings and goings. But she was here now.

She cleared her throat. “What if I just sat under the water? No soap.”

O’Deorain squinted at something on the screen. “I said ‘no,’ _coinín._” Her tone was stern.

Coinín tucked her knees up to her chest and smoldered silently. O’Deorain’s face was impassive, but she imagined she was smug about it. She had to know she was filthy. Of course she did. Why else would she touch her only through the barrier of her gloves?

* * *

“They came back for you, you know.” 

Coinín stiffened under her ministrations.

O’Deorain went on conversationally. “It was a pitiful attempt, really. Our soldiers overpowered them easily. They even offered me the ones that survived. But I ordered them all executed.” 

“Do you get off on hurting anyone,” Coinín said slowly, “or just me?” Instead of responding, O’Deorain reeled away and slapped her hard across the face, then swept out of the room without another word. 

Coinín touched her burning face curiously. The initial pain diminished after a minute or so, and her cheek tingled pleasantly, like a caress. When the feeling began to fade, she slapped herself again. Then she tucked herself into bed and she did not think of the boy behind the door or her dead comrades or what O’Deorain would look like covered in her blood or anyone else’s.

She returned the next day, and they did not discuss the incident again.

* * *

When she awoke, there was cloth over her face, and she felt jolt of terror that they had taken out her eyes—but no, she could still roll them behind her eyelids, and the darkness was fractured by bursts of color as they pressed against the bindings.

“Oh, you’re awake.” Of course she’d be close by. O’Deorain caught her hands before they could reach her face. “Ah, ah, ah,” she chastised. “Calm yourself. I’ve just made some adjustments to your right eye. I am confident that you will heal without complications, and the nanites will reduce recovery time. You will not go blind.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” She couldn’t see her face, but she thought she sounded genuine.

She swallowed. “And anyway, if you fucked it up, you could always grow me a new set of eyeballs in a petri dish.”

“That’s exactly right, you brilliant girl,” O’Deorain said, finding the seam and beginning to unwind the bandages. “Where did you get your doctorate, Oxford? Cambridge?”

“‘The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell,’” she quoted sagely.

There was a sudden flash of white as the cloth dropped away, and she squinted as her eyes adjusted to weak fluorescent lighting. She blinked rapidly as O’Deorain’s face came into focus. 

O’Deorain grinned at her. “Oh, gorgeous.” She was positively beaming.

Coinín could see everything: every crack and stain in the ceiling paint, every thread in the weave of O’Deorain’s lab coat, the red capillaries in the whites of her eyes, the pulse jumping under the delicate, onion-thin skin of her throat. O’Deorain tipped her face up, and her thumb pulled her eyelid back without warning, and she noted, not for the first time, the casual entitlement with which she handled her. 

“Perfect.” Coinín couldn’t recall ever seeing her so animated. “Would you like to see?” Before she could answer, O’Deorain took her arm, and she allowed herself to be pulled to the bathroom.

O’Deorain stood them in front of the mirror, and Coinín kept her expression impassive as she examined her eye. The iris was a muddy red, darkening toward the pupil. The socket was ringed with a marbling of sickly yellow and deep purple bruising. It was inhuman. A creature’s eye. She wondered if it would flash in the dark.

O’Deorain moved to stand behind her, placing her heavy hands on her shoulders. “How do you feel? What do you think?”

“I think…” She swayed on her feet. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

She nodded sympathetically. “There will be some dizziness as your vision adjusts.” She affectionately nuzzled her cheek against her hair, and caught her eye in the mirror. “Beautiful,” O’Deorain insisted.

“Beautiful,” she echoed back, numbly. She stared hard at O’Deorain’s own freakish red eye. Not quite the same red. 

But close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much like the beloved meme frog Pepe, I too have a book entitled 'Reasons to Live' that I read every night before bed, and whenever any of you leave a comment on my story it magically manifests there.


	12. Pyrrhos

Every sensation dulled. She felt she was watching herself through a foggy window. She could only feel O’Deorain’s touch when it was on the brink of being painful. But O’Deorain was patient and accommodating. 

Coinín couldn’t remember when her praise became sweeter than her derisions. She couldn’t remember much. She rummaged through her tattered memory for her birthday, her phone number, her own mother’s face—but all she could come up with was her.

* * *

O’Deorain changed the vial for the third time, and her blood seeped in, reluctantly. She was less squeamish about it now, but she was going lightheaded from the sheer quantity she was losing today. 

“Have you killed anyone?” Coinín asked.

O’Deorain was watching the vial too. If she’d caught her off guard, she didn’t show it. “You’re familiar enough with my line of work.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she said.

“I have, yes.” She didn’t elaborate.

“With a gun, or…?” Coinín prodded.

“No, not with a gun,” she said, and Coinín’s heart leapt in her throat.

“I bet you’re glorious in a fight,” she said, and O’Deorain snorted.

“I’m serious. Killing’s been cheapened by the war. It’s a lost art. Everyone’s a killer these days, but there’s no heart in it.” She licked her lips. “I would love to see you kill.”

O’Deorain’s lips pulled into a slight smile. She extracted the needle and pressed a wad of cotton to the puncture with her thumb, with a bit too much pressure.

* * *

Coinín perked up when she heard the beep of the keycard reader by the door, but slumped when a nurse entered, pushing a cart. She had sandy blonde hair and wore a jacket over her scrubs, which was peculiar. Coinín couldn’t remember seeing her before, but, then again, there was a lot she couldn’t remember.

“Listen. [We don’t have much time.](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/ee/a7/08/eea708bb211fe90548619f5e003163b2.jpg) I don’t actually work at this facility. I’m an agent of Overwatch.”

She caught herself before her mouth dropped open. Was this some kind of test? “Yeah? Me too. I’m that gorilla from the moon.”

The stranger looked unimpressed. “I’m serious. I’ve been monitoring the activities here, but I haven’t been able to get a word back to headquarters. Our transmissions are monitored, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Coinín muttered.

“I know you’re her primary subject. Is it true that you have direct knowledge of the Widowmaker Project?” 

Her eyes were wide and hopeful. “Yes,” Coinín said.

She nodded. “We know it’s some kind of super-soldier program, but that’s about it. If you agree to return with me to HQ, tell them what you know, let them study your, um, alterations…I can get you out of here.”

This was exactly the kind of opportunity she’d been waiting for, wasn’t it? A nagging feeling slithered into her gut. “Alright,” she said, before she had a chance to examine it.

The woman extended her hand, and she shook it. “By the way, what’s your name? I only know you by number.”

It would probably be unwise to give her real name. “Coinín,” she said.

“Coinín,” the woman repeated. “Call me Four.” She opened a drawer in the cart and produced a sleek back pistol and a clip of ammunition, and offered her both. “I’m going to leave this with you, in case things get messy and you need to defend yourself. To load it, you—” But her hands knew what to do, and she slid the clip in and cocked the pistol in a fluid motion.

Four blinked. “Oh. Okay. Right. Let’s get going. Wrap that blanket around your gun. Just follow behind me, okay?”

She wrapped it over her head and around her shoulders, and followed her out the door and into the hallway. She lowered her eyes submissively when they passed doctors and guards.

Eventually, the workers thinned out, and the hall diverged in front of them. “We’re almost there. You’re doing great. After this left, we—” There was panicked shouting and the slamming of doors some distance behind them. “That doesn’t sound good. Let’s pick up the pace a little.”

A loudspeaker crackled overhead. “Attention all personnel: there has been a breach. Please remain calm and follow lockdown protocols.”

She grabbed her arm and began a brisk jog. “This isn’t right. I don’t know what could have given us away—” But she was interrupted by the thudding of boots behind them. They were still a ways off, but Coinín could make out a troupe of armed guards—six of them—sprinting towards them. 

“Stop right there! Drop your weapon!” bellowed the one in front.

Five—no, wait—Four spun them around, and pressed her gun to the side of Coinín’s head. “Come any closer and I shoot,” she shouted back. The soldiers skidded to a halt.

“What the hell?” Coinín hissed.

“Work with me here.”

Their rifles were trained still trained on them. The other woman hesitated, and Coinín, impatient, took the opportunity to throw off the blanket and shoot the nearest one in the throat. Her aim was deadly precise, thanks to her diamond-clear vision; she swore she could see the bullet splitting flesh.

“Don’t hit the girl!” someone yelled as she and Five dove around opposite corners. The soldiers ducked behind the nearest doorways.

Coinín didn’t waste a bullet. With devastating accuracy, she hit another, and another. She sighed in ecstasy when the last one dropped. God, she’d missed this. She crossed the corridor. “Did you see that?! I got him right between the eyes, at least ten—”

The other woman was panting hard, and clutching her side. Her scrubs were soaked with bloody.

“Oh,” Coinín said. “Oh. Are you going to die?”

She collapsed against the wall, and reached for Coinín’s hands. “I need you to help me. There’s a nanite patch in my jacket.” Coinín knelt, and made some quick calculations.

She half-listened to her instructions as she ripped open her jacket and rifled through her pockets. She found what she was looking for: the patch, an access badge, and several more clips of ammo. Four’s breathing was shallow, now. Her eyes closed, and Coinín pressed the gun to her forehead and squeezed the trigger.

She stood, wiped her bloody hands on the front of her gown. Her bare feet left brownish footprints on the tiles, and she wiped them off, too. The exit had been to the left, right?

She stopped in her tracks. There was someone she was forgetting. Hashem? No, that wasn’t quite right…

She heard footsteps approaching, and peered around the corner. She recognized instantly the tap of oxfords on tile. It was O’Deorain, flanked by two soldiers. She raised the pistol and closed her bad eye, and they were down before they’d even registered a threat. Bang bang. In the head under the armpit. She stepped around the corner, and leveled the gun with O’Deorain’s heart. “Stay where you are.” 

She looked composed as ever, unperturbed by the bodies, one of them still groaning. By the blood pooling at her feet. “Come now, _coinín_. You don’t want to do that.” She raised her hands in surrender, but began a slow advance.

“Stop that,” Coinín barked, but her gun hand wavered, and she wanted O’Deorain to keep talking. 

Her voice was kind, patient. “You’re not in your right mind. Give that here.” She was upon her, now. O’Deorain pushed the gun downward and Coinín’s arms trembled and gave, but she gripped it tightly. 

She was trying, very gently, to pry the gun from her hands. “Be a good girl, now. You want to see Hasam? I’ll take you to him.” 

Hasam. That was it. “No,” she said, and, aiming for O’Deorain’s thigh, she fired.

But no sooner had the bullet left the chamber than her form dissipated into a writhing cloud of black smoke.

She ran.

O’Deorain’s scream of pure rage followed her down the corridor, raw and terrible, and a shiver wracked her whole body.

“_YOU LITTLE BRAT!” O’Deorain howled. YOU BLOODY FUCKING WHORE! GET BACK HERE! DON’T YOU FUCKING LEAVE ME!_” 

She willed her legs to move faster and swerved around a corner, and another, her body moving on autopilot, until she came to the door she sought. The scanner recognized the badge with a cheery beep, and she went in.

“Hasam?” she called.

He was sitting on the bed, spine erect and still as a statue. One of his eyes, the left one, was a lovely forest green. The other, the one she’d never seen, was a milky blue bereft of a pupil, barely distinguishable from the white of the eye. Both had a cold, vacant look in them.

“We’re getting out. Look, I came back, like we said. But we have to go, right now.”

“No,” he said flatly.

She was stunned. “No?”

She approached him, but just as she came within range, he rose and shoved her to the ground. In her surprise, the gun went off, but the bullet disappeared harmlessly into the wall.

“In there,” a voice called from the hallway. A team of soldiers filed in, weapons drawn, and O’Deorain followed close behind. 

“Predictable,” she sneered. “Set to stun. I want them unharmed.” 

They surveyed the scene before them, unsure. 

“She won’t hurt him,” she assured them. She turned her attention to her subjects. “It’s over, _coinín_. Didn’t you wonder who alerted the guards? Hasam, take the gun.” He took a step towards her. 

“Hasam?” Coinín said pleadingly. “Are you there?” 

He blinked, and a flash of clarity returned to his eyes, and she thought he might come to after all. But he just said, “You promised,” barely a whisper. And she realized she had. 

He took another step and she held the barrel to his forehead, and, gently, she pulled the trigger.

The shot rang out, and then the heavy sound of his body hitting the floor. O’Deorain’s cry of fury was the last thing she heard before she blacked out.

* * *

She was moving. The cart’s wheels squeaked as they turned a corner, and she felt a wave of nausea. Her head throbbed, and she could taste blood in her mouth. Hers? 

She looked toward her feet, and was unsurprised to find it was O’Deorain transporting her. “Doctor?” she tried. She noticed there was a spatter of blood on the lapel of her usually immaculate white lab coat. O’Deorain was uncharacteristically silent.

She whimpered as the lights came on. The door shut, and locked. “Did something happen?” She grimaced as an IV was inserted roughly into the inside of her elbow.

O’Deorain was pointedly avoiding her eye. “Please, have I done something wrong?” 

“Yes!” she snapped finally. “Yes, you have. You’ve done something very wrong, and now I am going to have to hurt you rather badly for it.” She was clamping some metal device around the crown of her head. 

“Oh,” she said, and it occurred to her that she was usually passed out by this point in the procedure. “Oh, God.” Her tired heart beat faster. “You—are you going to kill me?”

O’Deorain turned away. “In a matter of speaking.”

“Please, don’t. I’m sorry. I can be good—I can do better—”

There was music playing, a piece she didn’t recognize, at once victorious and achingly sad. “You will do better. You’ll be perfect. Pristine. A clean slate.” She laughed, too bitterly to pass for triumphant. “Isn’t that what you wanted, anyhow, with that incessant bathing of yours?” And she’d made a—

She’d made a mis—

Some dam in her broke, and that old, venomous hatred rushed back in and spilled over. She snarled, flinging spit through her bared teeth and thrashing against the restraints. O’Deorain recoiled away from her, her lip curling and her lovely face contorting in disgust. 

“I fucking hate you!” she shrieked. “You bloody degenerate! You insufferable, self-important bitch! You hypocrite! I won’t forget! I’ll fucking kill you! I’ll slit your belly open and string the walls with your intestines, you hear!”

And then O’Deorain’s hands were around her throat, and she felt her her eyes bulge as she squeezed hard. Her vision blurred, and the only sounds she heard were the rush of her own blood in her ears, and the faraway strings of the orchestra. She stopped flailing.

Then the hands left her. O’Deorain took a breath, and, seeming to regain some control of herself, turned back to the machine behind her. The contraption whirred to life, and she glanced over her shoulder with narrowed eyes, unpitying. “Goodbye, _coinín_.”

The strings rose to a crescendo, and Coinín heard a noise like a gunshot, and another rushing, louder, like the sound of a train flying by, which drowned out her scream. Her brain was swelling against the confines of her skull, as if it was being clamped by a vise, and she was sure that her head would explode from the force of it. She thought of a smiling green eye peering at her from under a doorway, and she thought of pressing a gun to her own head, and then she moved to a place beyond thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Cello Concerto, op. 85 in E minor (Edward Elgar)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hi8oAw0aUE)

**Author's Note:**

> [Pinterest board](https://www.pinterest.com/mindforgdmanacles/appetites/)
> 
> “Coinín” (cuh-neen) means “rabbit” in Irish Gaelic.


End file.
